A TAVISTOCK youngster has been busy in the greenhouse after coming up with an inventive fundraising strategy for a volunteering trip to Peru.

Fourteen-year-old Kieran Savage, a student at Tavistock College, is busy trying to raise more than £4,500 to join 30 other students on the four-week trip, helping the local community and environment. To do so, he has come up with some creative ideas, including a tomato challenge.

‘I planted five different types of tomato seeds, grew them into plants and sold them for £1 each,’ said Kieran. ‘My target was to sell 500 plants, which I achieved! Next year I will be setting a challenge of selling 1,000.’

He also bought lots of small bedding plants and grew them in his greenhouse, selling them individually in hanging baskets at his garden gate and online, has been collecting aluminium drinks cans which he will take to the recycling centre and receive cash back and purchased 1,400 DVDs at a ‘good price’ which he is re-selling online for a profit.

Other ideas he has include a garage sale, making bird boxes out of recycled wood and possibly a quiz or bingo night.

The Peru trip, organised by Camps International, will take place in July and August 2020.

He said: ‘While we are in Peru, we will be living within the local community and contributing to various community and environmental projects that are running there, such as building schools, planting trees and providing safe and clean water supplies. For the last week of the trip we will be trekking through the Andes to the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu.’